[LINK] "An Atlantic Canadian speech pattern, explained"

[rfmcdonald]

CBC News' Lindsay Bird reports on an odd Viking inheritance.

Say it on your inhale: "yeeeeeeeah."

If that felt like second nature, chances are you're from Atlantic Canada, where this peculiar speech pattern prevails. And this habit of inhaling a 'yes', 'no,' or 'hmmm' even, has a name: ingressive pulmonic speech.

"It's really interesting. It's a phenomenon you don't find in too many of the world's languages, but [in] a big geographical zone," said retired Memorial University professor Sandra Clarke, an expert on the special inhale.

Ingressive pulmonic speech is widespread throughout Atlantic Canada, down into Maine, and then stretches across the North Atlantic to encompass Scotland, Ireland, Iceland and Scandinavia, and as far east as Estonia.

[. . .]

"Where it seems to have come from originally, is probably what we now call Scandinavia. The Vikings were the ones who probably brought it to Scotland and Ireland," she said, adding the large influx of Scottish and Irish likely transported it to Canada's East Coast.